East Side Eviction Risk: Elevated , Allentown

26% are severely burdened past the 50% mark. That cohort absorbs no shock: one repair bill or one cut shift converts straight into arrears. Set annual rent against average income of $53,833 and the ratio lands at 34%, above the conventional 30% ceiling.

It sits 1.5 points above the Lehigh County average of 4.7. At $1,519 a month, rents run 15% over what the rest of Allentown commands.

Princeton's Eviction Lab logged 235 filings here across 7 tracked years. Filings peaked in 2005 at 6.6% of renter households.

In the 1930s the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation graded this ground B ("Still Desirable"). Redlining cut off mortgage credit to whole blocks for decades, and the areas graded D still carry measurably lower ownership and higher rent burden today. In a typical year about 4.7% of renter households face a filing. That is riskier than roughly 80% of the 84,120 US census tracts in this model.

Only 25% of units are renter-occupied. Rental comparables are thin; price a renewal off the nearest genuine rental sub-market rather than off surrounding sale prices. Social vulnerability reads 7.1/10 on the CDC index, a measure of exposure to housing and economic shocks. Statewide the PA average is 4.6, so this tract runs 1.6 points hotter.

Of its three components the household composition measure is the most pressured. 44% of renter households spend at least 30% of income on rent.

These are ACS 5-year estimates; the score moves when the ACS, court-record, or statute inputs behind it move.